Spellcheck is an Artist’s Best Friend
Tattoos are forever, even the bad ones. Some of the most facepalm-worthy bad tattoos are those that incorporate bad spelling. Bad art can be a matter of opinion, but spelling is something that is easy to double-check and when it’s wrong, it’s wrong. Some incredibly misspelled tattoos have found great fame on the Internet, including a previous post here on Inked Talk.
One famous tattoo typo took on a life of its own. The infamous “Chi-tonw” tattoo actually spawned a few copycats. Most people who are unlucky enough to sport bad ink don’t have the luxury of being able to say that they are trendsetters, but the original Mr. Chi-Tonw has that claim to fame for his poorly-spelled ink. Even with that fame, there’s little doubt that he would prefer a properly spelled tattoo.
Inked Talk doesn’t intend to call out an artist who has the misfortune of creating a poorly-spelled tattoo, but a tattoo flash book at the Milwaukee Tattoo Convention had a glaring typo on an otherwise cute piece of flash, and that inspired today’s piece. (Protip: pluralization of a word does not require an apostrophe.) It’s one thing to make a typo on a detailed or wordy tattoo: the work was likely done within a relatively short period of time, and let’s face it - sometimes you can look at your own work time after time without catching an error. Like the famous brain-teaser below, sometimes it takes a second, third or fourth look before a mistake becomes obvious:
A flash book seems like a different animal entirely, though. Unlike a tattoo which can be discussed, roughed out and stitched in within a span of a short sitting, a flash book, theoretically, is assembled over time with plenty of opportunities for review between conception and publication. Sadly, that one glaring typo really clouded the rest of that artist’s work.
Carpenters say “measure twice, cut once.” I think there’s some analogy in there for tattooing.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
The 2nd one is the worst place for tattoo I’ve ever seen.